Description
The Department for Acute Care is responsible for admitting patients followed at Gustave Roussy whose medical condition requires close supervision or high technology management (life-threatening illness, complex disease, high risk of complications etc.).
To fulfil this function the Department is divided into three units and one mobile unit:
- A high-dependency medical unit (USCM) to manage patients with acute complications who are at risk of developing organ failure.
- An intensive therapy unit (SAR = acute resuscitation unit) for the treatment of patients with organ failure (respiratory failure, renal failure, haemodynamic decompensation etc.).
- A high-dependency surgical unit (USCC) which looks after post-operative patients who have undergone extensive surgery or who are at high risk of medical complications.
- The mobile unit for infectious disease (UPI) does not have its own beds. It is involved in the management of in-patients in the various Gustave Roussy units who present with infective conditions.
Principal activities
The work of the Acute Care Department is focused in the following major areas:
- Early management of the patient before the development of a life-threatening complication
- Continuity of medical care to improve pain management (postoperative analgesia, sedation, pain-relief measures, prevention of chronic pain etc.).
- Continuity of medical care applied to the assessment of and improvement in safety and quality of care (evaluation of investigation results, reflection on professional practice, cross-department mortality and morbidity reviews etc.).
- Constant availability of the medical team and participation in overall medical care for inpatients on units other than the Acute Care Department (the number of consultations performed by the unit’s interns has increased by a factor of 2 in 2 years; there were also 232 urgent anaesthetic consultations in 2014).
- Substantial involvement in the management of hospital infections (management of the hospital nosocomial infection policy, microbiology staff meetings and management of patients carrying multiresistant bacteria).
Research and Teaching
The Acute Care Department runs many courses intended for medical students and for different health professional groups both from within and from outside the hospital. It focuses on more specific themes such as ethics and criteria for admission to oncological intensive therapy, catheter-related infections, febrile neutropenia, pneumonia in the immunosuppressed patient / pneumocystis pneumonia, pain management and life-threatening events.
The Department, in collaboration with others, was involved in the development of the Manual of Oncology for Interns (and its Smartphone application) and it also participates in teaching and bibliographic work in the Department of Medicine.
The Acute Care Department conducts and/or participates in numerous clinical research studies which are frequently multicentric and/or linked to local developments.
